Difficult Clients

Everyone has heard the bad contractor stories. The job that was supposed to be done in two weeks taking six months. Contractors who take a down payment, then disappear. The painter gets paint all over your roof. The roofer shows up drunk.

What about difficult clients? I thoroughly enjoy working with almost every one and develop great relationships with most. However there have been some difficult customers over the years, and some have been downright impossible!

Mrs. Picky-Pants.

Picky is fine. I'm particular about the quality of my work too - as is any contractor worth his or her salt. But some people fall into the "impossible to please" category. Case story:

Absolutely beautiful 60 year old home undergoing a major year-long renovation. When I bid the job, Mrs Picky-Pants told me she'd had to fire her last painter because he was "difficult to deal with" and the "quality of his work did not do her home justice." (It actually looked like he'd been doing a great job.) I got the job and started work.

Every morning, I found bits of blue tape everywhere, and a long list of things that "needed fixing." Quite often this was in areas I hadn't even finished yet! Her husband told me she would turn off the lights and go all over her house with a bright work-light looking for miniscule flaws in everyone's work. He even apologized for her. She would call me during the day "reminding" me to do this or that. In almost two weeks, she had nothing but lists of criticism and nit-picking.

I found out she'd fired her first contractor, at least one plumber, was on her third electrician and I was the fourth painter on the job. She wafted around her beautiful home just complaining about everything. Nothing was going to please this woman.

We finally came to an agreement. I would leave the paint job for yet another painter and she would have a nice life, without me in it.

Most people who work on your home take a great deal of pride in their work. To hear nothing but complaint and criticism day after day gets very discouraging.

Non-paying and slow-paying clients.

This doesn't happen often, thankfully. Many small contractors are paying their materials bill, paying their help, paying for the gas to get to the jobsite every day, before paying themselves. While it's never a good idea to pay too much of a down payment (and often down payments are not requested; I only ask for one if the job is likely to be lengthy) I'm working on the trust that once the job is finished to everyone's satisfaction, I get paid right there and then. You don't get your car back from the shop, or your laundry from the cleaners, without paying the bill first and your painter should be no different.

None of this leaving unexpectedly for a month long European vacation without first making sure your painter gets paid for painting the entire exterior of your house! None of this handing over a check and asking if I can hold it for several days while you "transfer money to this account." None of the "my wife has the checkbook" or "my husband will give you a check when he gets back from Cleveland next week."

You know who you are.

Don't touch that faucet.

Sometimes I joke that people will see a higher water bill when having painting done. Maybe so! Especially if using several different colors and types of paint, there are frequent rinsings and tool and bucket cleanings throughout the day.

Usually a painter will use your laundry tub or kitchen sink. Water based paints won't hurt anything, and any decent painter will carefully clean your sink after each use.

It's virtually impossible to paint without access to water. I had to leave a job once because the homeowner refused to let me use any water! She lived in the suburbs adjacent to farmland. I didn't get through the first day on the job.

Painted two small bedroom ceilings. The bedrooms were each to be a different color, plus the trim needed to be painted, along with the closets in yet another color. This would require five cleanups. Or five separate brush/roller/bucket setups, which I did not have.

I asked, where is your laundry tub for cleaning up? "Oh," she told me, "my laundry room is a mess and I don't want you using it." OK, how about your kitchen sink then. "No, I would rather you not use the kitchen sink." It won't hurt anything; I will leave it real clean. "No." Ummm....well then where is your outside hose? "I don't want that water going into my yard." (By now I am getting rather testy.) Then I shall run the hose into the field, but m'am, I really do need to use water here. "Can't you just fill a bucket and rinse your tools in there?" No m'am, I cannot. I have done this for 28 years and this is the first time someone has refused me access to water. Truly, it hurts nothing.

I could not get her to tell me why she did not want me to use water to clean up. Finally I told her that I'd comply with her unusual request but I would add an extra cost to the final bill for having to go to the store and buying three more paint setups. She balked at that and we parted ways.

That one was just weird.

Excessive paranoia.

I've had people so unhinged at the idea of leaving a door unlocked for a nanosecond guard the door each time I have to go to my truck in their driveway, then locking it behind me really fast as if I have a pack of gun wielding killers hot on my heels. I had one man actually erect a temporary fence around a garden shed while we painted the outside of his house. (Turns out he had pot growing in there!)

Another client didn't want anyone in her home while she was away. Fine, but she also had a busy schedule. "On Monday, you can come at 11 am after I take the kids to swimming. I'll be home until 1pm, then I have to go out for an hour. Can you leave at one for lunch, then come back after 2pm? On Tuesday, you can work from 9 am but I'll be leaving at 2pm." And so on. Since this was going to be a lengthy job, I didn't do it because it would have been just silly working like that!

I'm all for being flexible and accommodating. Being security conscious is just fine, we all should be! But this can be taken to extremes.

To sum up: If you have chosen your contractor carefully, trust they will have pride in their work, be trustworthy human beings, deserve to be paid promptly when the job is completed and are really not looking to rip you off.

-Carina MacDonald

Carina MacDonald has been a painting contractor since
1979 and has tackled everything from large commercial buildings and Victorian homes to faux painting a child s room and wallpapering a bathroom. If it stands still long enough, she can figure out a way to paint it correctly!